NCAA Mock Selection Seminar: Day Two recap

Before I get deep into the second installment of my reporets from the NCAA Mock Selection Seminar in Indianapolis, a huge thanks to Greg Shaheen, David Worlock, Jeannie Boyd and the rest of the NCAA staff.

Day Two began at 8:30 in the same Conrad Hotel meeting room we used Thursday. Before attacking the bracketing phase, we finished up with selection and seeding. Those two processes took about three hours — on top of the eight or nine we spent on it Thursday.

(That should give you a sense for the kind of teams/resumes the committee will be evaluating for the final at-large berths in the official bracket.)

Because my partner and I were representing committee member Scott Barnes, the athletic director at Utah State, and because USU was one of 12 teams on the final ballot, we were not allowed to vote.

The results pushed Cincinnati, Utah State, Georgia and Butler into the field as the last of the 37 ALs selections.

But that didn’t mean they would be the last teams in.

The results of conference tournaments, which were simulated by the NCAA staff, meant that several teams in the AL field would move into the automatic-qualifier pool (AQ) and thus open up AL spots for teams just below No. 37.

Those teams were, in order, Florida State, Gonzaga and Virginia Tech.

As it turned out, there was room for FSU and Gonzaga.

Virginia Tech also entered the tournament by virtue of advancing to the finals (against Duke) of the simulated ACC tournament.

If the Hokies won, they’d become an AQ.

If they lost, then Duke would become the AQ and open an AL spot – the final AL spot – for VaTech.

(They won and became an AQ.)

Marquette was just below the cutoff line, along with teams like Michigan State, Colorado State and Baylor – again, just to give you a sense for which teams figure to be in the hunt for the final spots on selection weekend.

(And please note: Because the committee ranks more than 37 AL teams, then waits for the results of the conference tournaments to set the cutoff bar, it’s erroneous to believe that it knowingly selects the proverbial “last-team in.”)

With the ALs set, we finished the seeding process, listing the teams 1-68.

Then we went back through and “scrubbed” the list – the committee’s term for re-assessing. Time constraints kept up from going line by line for 68 lines, but we took a fairly hard look at the top 28-32 teams.

(Note: The final ALs in the field were seeded in this manner: No. 41 Georgia, No. 42 Butler, No. 43 Florida State and No. 44 Gonzaga.)

Then, with just a few hours left, we moved to bracketing, which takes far less time than selection or seeding.

Typically, the committee won’t get to the bracketing phase until Selection Sunday, after spending four days picking and seeding the teams.

On a power-point screen in the front of the room appeared the names of the four regionals: Newark (East), Anaheim (West), San Antonio (Southwest) and New Orleans (Soiutheast).

Under each name were 16 lines and a list of the 68 teams in the field.

The NCAA has a slew of really cool computer programs to speed the process, and one of them was on display with the bracketing:

When a member of the NCAA staff clicked on the name of a team, the mileage from that campus to each of the four regional sites appeared on the screen.

As the No. 1 overall, Ohio State was the first team to be placed. It was closer to Newark than any other regional, so the Buckeyes were slotted there. Then came No. 2 Texas, which was assigned to San Antonio, and so on.

When we got to the No. 2 seeds, the complicated rules and procedures for bracketing came into play:

The most important ones are:

Slot a team as close to home as possible (geography plays a very important role in the bracketing).

The first three teams from a conference must be placed in different regions.

Teams from the same conference cannot meet until the regional final – unless, that is, there are more than eight teams from a conference in the field. (We ended up with 10 Big East teams.)

The first four seeds in each regional should not be placed at a “home-crowd disadvantage.” (In other words: Don’t place a No. 2 seed in an arena that’s 20 minutes from the No. 15’s campus.)

Rematches from the regular season and last year’s tournament should be avoided when possible.

As we moved through the bracketing, it quickly became apparent that the committee has very little flexibility for slotting teams after the top-four seeds — something that I knew to be the case but didn’t realize just how much it was the case.

We also had to deal with the issue of the “First Four,” the two first-round games featuring the last No. 16 seeds and the two first-round games featuring the last AL teams in the field.

The complicated issue there was geography.

The First Four games are in Dayton, but the second-round games are not. Gonzaga was a First Four participant because the No. 11-seeded Zags were the last AL team in the tournament. We had them playing in Dayton, then feeding to Chicago, then possibly advancing to Anaheim.

Was there a better geographic option for the Zags? And were there any slots open on the No. 11 line?

For a variety of reasons that included the bracketing of other teams, we ultimately decided to stick with Dayton-Chicago-Anaheim for the Zags.

In several instances, we moved a team up or down one seed line, which is allowed under the bracketing principle.

We had no choice but to violate the rematch rules because of the presence of all the Big East teams.

There’s a link to our mock bracket below (based on results through Thursday), but here are the top seeds and a few other items that might be of interest to Hotline readers:

*** Before I get deep into the second installment of my reports from the NCAA Mock Selection Seminar in Indianapolis, a huge thanks to Greg Shaheen, David Worlock, Jeanne Boyd and the rest of the NCAA staff — it was a terrific two days …

Day Two (Friday) began at 8:30 a.m. in the same Conrad Hotel meeting room we used Thursday. Before attacking the bracketing phase, we finished up with selection and seeding.

Those two phases took about three hours — on top of the eight or nine we spent on them Thursday.

(That should give you a sense for the kind of teams/resumes the committee will be evaluating for the final at-large berths in the official bracket. As was noted several times during our seminar: Thank goodness the tournament didn’t expand to 96 teams.)

Because my partner (Rodney McKissic of the Buffalo News) and I were representing committee member Scott Barnes, the athletic director at Utah State … and because USU was one of 12 teams on the final ballot … we were not allowed to participate in the voting for the final at-large spots.

The results pushed Cincinnati, Utah State, Georgia and Butler into the field as the last of the 37 ALs selections.

But that didn’t mean they would be the last teams in.

The results of mock conference tournaments — intended to simulate selection weekend curveballs — meant that several teams in the AL field would move into the automatic-qualifier pool (AQ), thus opening up AL spots for teams just below No. 37.

Those teams were, in order, Florida State, Gonzaga and Virginia Tech.

As it turned out, there was room for FSU and Gonzaga.

Virginia Tech also entered the tournament by virtue of advancing to the finals (against Duke) of the mock ACC tournament.

If the Hokies won, they’d become an AQ.

If they lost, then Duke would become the AQ and open an AL spot – the final AL spot – for VaTech.

(The Hokies won and became an AQ.)

Marquette and Michigan State were just below the cutoff line, along with teams like Colorado State and Baylor – again, just to give you a sense for which teams figure to be in the hunt for the final spots on selection weekend.

(And please note: Because the committee ranks more than 37 AL teams — in past years: 34 — and waits for the results of the conference tournaments to set the cutoff bar, it’s impossible for the committee to knowingly select the proverbial “last-team in.”)

With the ALs set, we finished the seeding process, listing the teams 1-68.

Then we went back through and “scrubbed” the list – the NCAA’s term for re-assessing. Time constraints kept up from going line by line for 68 lines, but we took a fairly hard look at the top 28-32 teams.

(Note: The final ALs in the field were seeded in this manner: No. 41 Georgia, No. 42 Butler, No. 43 Florida State and No. 44 Gonzaga.)

Then, with just a few hours left, we moved to bracketing, which takes far less time than selection or seeding.

Typically, the committee won’t get to the bracketing phase until Selection Sunday, after spending four days picking and seeding the teams.

On a power-point screen in the front of the room appeared the names of the four regionals: Newark (East), Anaheim (West), San Antonio (Southwest) and New Orleans (Southeast).

Under the name of each regional, there were 16 blank lines. A box in the lower third of the screen had all 68 teams listed.

The NCAA has a slew of really cool computer programs to speed up the process, and one of them was on display with the bracketing:

When a member of the NCAA staff clicked on the name of a team, the mileage from that campus to each of the four regional sites instantly appeared on the screen.

As the No. 1 overall, Ohio State was the first team to be placed. It was closer from Columbus to Newark than to any other regional, so the Buckeyes were slotted there. Then came No. 2 Texas, which was assigned to San Antonio, and so on.

When we got to the No. 2 seeds, the complicated rules and procedures for bracketing came into play. The most important bracketing principles are:

* Slot a team as close to home as possible (geography plays a very important role in the bracketing).

* The first three teams from a conference must be placed in different regions.

* Teams from the same conference cannot meet until the regional final – unless, that is, there are more than eight teams from a conference in the field. (We ended up with 10 Big East teams.)

* The first four seeds in each regional should not be placed at a “home-crowd disadvantage.” (In other words: Don’t place a No. 2 seed in an arena that’s 20 minutes from the No. 15’s campus.)

* Rematches from the regular season and last year’s tournament should be avoided when possible.

As we moved through the bracketing, it quickly became apparent that the committee has very little flexibility for slotting teams after the top-four seeds — something that I knew but didn’t realize the extent to which it’s the case.

We also had to deal with the issue of the “First Four,” the two first-round games featuring the last No. 16 seeds and the two first-round games featuring the last AL teams in the field.

The complicated issue there was geography.

The First Four games are in Dayton, but the 32 second-round games are not. Gonzaga was a First Four participant because the No. 11-seeded Zags were the last AL team in the tournament. We had them playing in Dayton, then feeding to Chicago, then possibly advancing to Anaheim.

Was there a better geographic option for the winner of Gonzaga-Florida State? Were there any other locations available on the No. 11 line? Should we drop the two 11s to the 12-seed line, which allowed for more options?

(The committee is allowed to move a team up or down one line from its “true” seed in order to accommodate bracketing principles.)

For a variety of reasons that included the placement of other teams, we ultimately decided to stick with Dayton-Chicago-Anaheim for the Zags/Florida State winner.

And on numerous instances, we violated the rematch rules — mostly because of the presence of all the Big East teams.

There’s a link to our mock bracket below (based on results through Thursday), but here are the top seeds and a few other items that might be of interest to Hotline readers: